Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Very often, when following various reports of illicit commerce, of money laundering, of drug dealing, of terrorism, and the like, we get the message that all of these individuals are part of some "unholy alliance, as Reuters recently reported.

Well, hawala is associated with money laundering and terrorist financing ( as well as many legitimate money transfers ) while Somalia's Al Shabaab has been linked to al Qaeda.

Yet here we have Al Shabaab attacking a hawaladar.

The illicit world we are studying is vastly more complex than any Bismarkian form of alliance or James Bond SPECTRE-type conspiracy.